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Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Sugarloaf Mountain
The last stop on the tour was to Sugarloaf Mountain, also known as Pão de Açúcar in Portuguese. The name comes from the way it looks. The loaf is the mountain and the sugar is the clouds surrounding...
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Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Oldest Bar in Santa Teresa
In the area of Santa Teresa in Rio, there is a small bar called Armazem Sao Thiago. It’s literally one of those hidden gem places, because without our friend driving us around, we probably wouldn’t...
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Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Brazilian BBQ
I may have mentioned in previous posts that I think it’s fantastic when I get to try the foods of the country that it is known for in the country itself. No exception here when we checked out a...
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Taipei, Taiwan: Taipei 101 Tower
Our flight arrived in the evening and after a few hours of some restless sleep, Dad and I did a private tour of the city. It was a quick trip to Taipei, Taiwan at the beginning of last September. With...
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Taipei, Taiwan: Night Street Market
Going to the Night Market during the daytime isn’t ideal, but with the timeframe we had, you do what you have to do sometimes. I missed out on the feel of it. If there’s more time next time I visit,...
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Taipei, Taiwan: Lungshan Temple
In continuation with my last post about vendors selling flowers as offerings for the nearby temple, we checked it out. There is no fee, but since Lungshan Temple is popular to locals and tourists...
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Taipei, Taiwan: Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall
As I entered through the main gate of this national monument, I felt like an ant walking up to this memorial, because of its grand scale, in honor of one of the influential leaders of the Republic of...
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Taipei, Taiwan: Food Adventures
As with many of these mystery trips, food is something I’m on the lookout for to try some local dishes, away from the tourist traps and the familiar food chains. Indulging in the local flavor always...
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Beijing, China: The Great Wall
The Great Wall section that we walked on was called Mutianyu, considered to be one of the best-well-kept portion of the Great wall. This section was used as a barrier to protect and defend the capital...
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Beijing, China: The Finest Handicraft of Chinese Culture
Considered to be one of the finest handicrafts of the culture, cloisonne combines the skills used to make bronze and porcelain pieces, as well as having a delicate hand of traditional Chinese painting...
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Beijing, China: Summer Palace
The construction began in 1750 by the emperor of the Qing dynasty with its main intention to be a garden and park. However, it ended up becoming the place of royal residence. It has now turned into...
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Beijing, China: Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City
Tiananmen Square is considered to be a large city square that has several distinguished buildings: the Great Hall, National Museum of China, entrance to Forbidden City, and Chairman Mao Zedong...
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Beijing, China: Hutong Homecooking & Hospitality
Despite this next segment being part of a tour, it was still really neat to explore the Old Beijing town. We took a rickshaw to go through the town. I remember it being a smaller town consisting of...
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Beijing, China: 2008 Summer Olympic Games
Following the Hutong home cooked luncheon and tour, we made our way to 2 of the arenas/venues where the 2008 Olympics were held – Beijing National Stadium (aka Bird’s Nest) and Beijing National...
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Beijing, China: Roasted Duck
I had ill timing in putting up this post, which would have gone well with the Thanksgiving holiday. Anyway, according to the locals, this restaurant was the place to go for roasted duck. Well, if what...
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Beijing, China: Silk Market
‘Tis the time of shopping season! During our trip to Beijing, we made an evening of it after taking the subway to get to the Silk Market, a shopping center boasting over 1500 vendors. We went there...
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Amsterdam, Netherlands: Zaanse Schans-The Windmill Village
The windmill village just outside Amsterdam, in the Zaan region, used to have over 500 windmills that ran at the same time. Presently there are 10 industrial windmills at Zaanse Schans that still...
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